Tea and Aftershave
by 221Bme
Summary: This is based on the idea of "what would have happened if it had been John who died in the Reichenbach fall instead?"
1. Blackness

_Sleep eluded him for days._

He hated to lay there with his eyes open, trapped in the real world-but _whenever he tried to close them..._

Sherlock couldn't bring himself to eat. Couldn't make himself drink anything.

He felt ill constantly, stemming from a dull ache in his chest that never lessened or went away. Sometimes that ache pressed up behind his eyes,  
threatening a storm-but all that ever happened was a single drop sliding down his cheek, sometimes two.

It seemed physically impossible.

_All he wanted now was oblivion._

This numbness felt like death, only much less welcome.

To have found him-his best, and only friend-and to have lost him... Sherlock should have been able to prevent it...

_Failure._

_Guilty._

And now, alone in the world. Again.

Who would make stupid blog posts about their cases now? Who would keep him grounded, tell him flatly when he'd screwed up?_ Who would ever replace John?_

Sherlock shut his eyes again, knowing the answer to that question already.

_There was no replacement._

There never had been, and there never would be, and without him...

He knew he should be able to bounce back from this. He had always worked alone before, and it had never bothered him that much. He'd lost people before, and he'd recovered...

Sherlock turned a dull gaze on the fading dusky light filtering in through the flat's window.

He hadn't risen from the armchair since yesterday.

John's armchair.

It smelled like him-like tea and aftershave, and Sherlock still couldn't decide whether it was comforting or painful.

Then again, everything was painful.

His head.

His heart.

He had forgotten that it could hurt this much...

Mycroft came by sometimes... But Sherlock had shut down. He didn't want to talk, and he damn well didn't want to think. But that was all he could do, these days.

Sometimes it was too much altogether, and he would sit there in a daze, just feeling his own heartbeat against his ribs and trying to give up on making sense of things.

It shouldn't have been John.

_It should have been him._

John didn't deserve that. Even a sociopath could see it.

Sometimes, to his sleep-deprived, malnourished, burned out brain, it seemed as if John was just about to walk in-to apologise for having been late, to explain that he'd just been out at the shops, or maybe at work, or... or anywhere, really.

Anywhere except underground.

_Anything except gone._

Sherlock was just so tired... So very, very tired...

He finally stirred, heaving himself up from the chair and ignoring the pounding pain between his ears. His throat felt dry, but he hardly noticed. He hadn't parted his lips in three days.

No need to speak, if no one was listening.

He crossed the room slowly, approaching the window. He paused a moment before pulling back the curtain a bit, just enough to peer out at the street below.

Rain soaked streets, and people going about their business.

Just as if John had never existed. _As if he hadn't mattered._

Sherlock let the curtain fall again, plunging the flat back into near-darkness. His tired eyes swept the room, falling on a cup of tea on the living room table. Mrs. Hudson must have left it for him earlier. Funny... He hadn't even noticed she'd come in...

He left it where it was, cold and uninteresting. Just like everything else...

Honestly, he had no idea what to do with himself anymore. He couldn't work. He couldn't think.

He could hardly breathe.

After a moment he realised he had crossed the living room again, and was standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to John's room.

What _used_ to be John's room.

He tried to correct himself mentally, wondering if he might be ready, but he might as well have just stabbed himself and twisted the knife.

Not ready at all...

He didn't know how long he stood there, really.

It could have been an hour. Could have been two.

It was dark outside the window by the time he could finally move again. By the time he could finally will himself to take those first few steps up the stairs. Everything was silent except for his own footsteps, and the silence itself was deafening.

He was almost thankful for the darkness now, because it meant that he didn't have to see anything.

Didn't have to see that John wasn't there.

At last he could make out that he'd found his way into the doctor's old room, and for several long minutes he just stood there in the black doorway, taking deep,  
quiet breaths and pretending he wasn't there.

A wave of fatigue hit him, and he leaned one hand against the doorframe he couldn't see.

Everything was blackness.

And everything hurt.

Without even being able to see Sherlock could tell that John had been preparing for a date not long before he... Before he'd gone.

He could smell the hint of cologne still hanging on the still air.

He'd ignored the fact that he was exhausted, fought the weakness in his limbs for days, because what could he do about it?

John was dead, and nothing would ever be the same.

His eyes widened at the pathetic sound that broke the silence; had that come from himself? It was the first vocalisation in a long while...

His throat felt sore and parched, and speaking hurt. And yet he couldn't stop that second shuddering gasp that forced itself from him; he bit his tongue to hold the silence, but it was too hard. Feeling as if his legs would give out beneath him, he felt his way forward in the dark, soon bumping into the bed.

_Desperate._

He lowered himself onto the mattress and quickly pulled the duvet up over his head, hugging himself and simultaneously hating himself for being so weak. It quickly got too hot in the little duvet-cave, but it wasn't as if Sherlock cared much. Another shudder shook him, and though he tried hard not to give in, the storm was finally breaking.

_Confused._

The sobs were muffled in the blankets.

Nothing happened: the flat remained dark and quiet; no one responded; no one cared.

Soon he couldn't breathe anymore, choking on his own tears, and had to force himself to stop.

It happened unnaturally quickly, and within a moment or two he was gazing blankly, unseeing, at the ceiling above, lying on his back.

Practice makes perfect.

After a while he pulled the duvet closer again, clenching a handful of it in his fist and covering himself in it as if it would protect him from everything. He took a deep breath.

_Tea and aftershave..._


	2. Doing poorly

_The guilt was overwhelming._

It ate at John every waking moment-but Mycroft had specifically told him that he couldn't tell Sherlock.

Couldn't let him know that life wasn't over, that he wasn't dead...

'No man left behind' was what he'd always lived by-but now he was being forced to stand by and pretend as his best friend fell apart.

And it was because of _him._

From what he'd heard, Sherlock was doing poorly: not eating, not drinking, not sleeping...  
And it surprised him, just a little bit. It surprised him that the great Sherlock Holmes, the cold mind and feelingless intellect, would be so completely felled by just the absence of one person.

John, specifically.

He knew they were friends-that was an understood-but he'd never realised that Sherlock... cared _that_ much.

And so it was a shock to the doctor's system to find that Sherlock was this messed up by his 'death.'

In a way, it was heartwarming.

In another way, it worried him to no end, and he constantly feared that the detective would be dead-or nearly so-by the time John returned.

He had, once or twice, tried to suggest to Mycroft that maybe it would be in Sherlock's best interest to have him see someone, a professional, just to... make sure he was okay. But the elder Holmes had assured him that it wouldn't work out.

He had said something about how Holmes' just didn't do that, or some similar bullshit.

He'd said it wouldn't help.

But the way things were going, John might just have to insist.


End file.
